It was strange, rowing endlessly on a perfectly flat surface, leaving no trace as to my passing, but I persevered, hoping that something would eventually change. It did, just not in the way I was expecting.

Focused as I was on my surroundings, I had the perfect seat to watch as the fog rolled in. Everything else was so unchanging that even the subtle change in the air around me stood out to me. While I didn’t have any actual eyes, Saltwater Sense did give me a good understanding of where saltwater was around me, and it was an experience to see the fog bank approach, closing in from all sides in a distinctly mystical manner. The air was saturated with droplets of saltwater, just small enough to stay afloat while numerous enough to blanket everything with a thick layer of mist.

Any normal person would have been basically blind out in that mess, but I was able to keep on moving forwards more or less unhindered. The biggest hassle for me was the muffling sensation the fog provided. This place was already quiet, but the action of rowing created enough noise that it was a tolerable, peaceful quiet. Now I could barely hear myself move, as if the world around me was trying to smother me where I stood, choking first my sound, and then everything else. While unnerving, it didn’t pass beyond that point, and I forced myself to keep rowing. I might not like these conditions, but staying still would just leave me stuck here. Once again I considered activating Navigation and leaving this place as fast as I could, but despite my nerves nothing had really struck me as dangerous yet. With the reassurance that I still could turn around and leave whenever I wanted to, I continued onwards.

“Hey”

I was not expecting someone to speak, especially not in what sounded like a familiar voice. I double checked my senses, but I couldn’t pick up anything. As far as I could tell, I was as alone out here as I always was, but I could have sworn that I had actually heard something. Still, this place was creepy enough that I wouldn’t blame my mind for starting to hear things that weren’t there.

“You are an interesting one, aren’t you?” The masculine voice said again. It wasn’t Lirillin, nor was it Adam or Jim. It could have been one of the sailors that I’d listened to at some point or another, but that didn’t feel quite right. What I could tell was that the noise was coming from the same space as my bench. I couldn’t see anything there, nor could I respond to the voice with words of my own, and so I simply stopped moving, wiggling my oars to see if I could bump the handles into my invisible passenger while straining to make out more details of who they might be.

All I could sense was more mist filling that space, the same as anywhere else around me.

Then the fog coalesced, collapsing together until it was a solid body of water, shaped like a person. My perception isn’t detailed enough to make out his finer features, or perhaps he simply didn’t have any, but either way I could read the casual posture he had settled into, relaxing on one bench as if he had all the time in the world.

I feel a surge of fear pulse through me as I take in this stranger's sudden arrival, but as he continues to hold still I calm down a little. Cautiously, I tried to start a method of communication. Keeping my actions as sharp and neat as possible, I began to lightly tap one oar against the still water around me, carefully counting my way up to the letter ‘W’. ‘H’ and ‘Y’ follow afterwards, but even as I’m cursing the fact that ‘y’ is so far back in the alphabet the stranger speaks up again.

“Why am I here?” He asks, preempting the question I had been slowly forming. “Because you are here, of course! It’s not like I’m formed to talk to anyone else, after all…” His voice trails off invitingly, an open-ended statement that forces me to consider his words, to try and put together the sparse few pieces I have into a more reasonable answer.

It’s me. Even if I’m far more familiar with hearing the voice from the inside, complemented by internal conduction, once I let myself consider the possibility it becomes impossible to ignore. His voice, his shape, his posture, everything points to him somehow being my doppelganger.

Immediately I draw on Navigation and ask it to take me back to Dirint. I might not have a great idea of what is going on here, but mysterious clones in creepy environments is enough for me to call it quits.

Navigation stutters.

As far as I can tell, I am simultaneously standing still in this spot, and also heading back to Dirint by the fastest route I can find. As I’m possible over that strange duality, my mysterious passenger notices what I attempted to do.

“Leaving so soon? I’m afraid that now that you’re here, the only way out is through. Through me, to be precise.”

I mentally sigh. It figures. At least he’s able to understand me. “What do I need to do?” I slowly ask.

“Nothing much. The Sea of mirrors asks only one thing for all that might find their way to this place. To face yourself, to acknowledge and overcome all your hidden desires and fears, your dark thoughts that you hoped would never see the light of day. You can at least be glad that you’re a crew of one. Things get far more interesting when others are around to overhear things.”

I could well imagine it. “And what do you get out of it?

The spirit says nothing, even as his posture alters slightly to give off a cheerful vibe. Before I commit to playing his game, I decide to spend the experience I’ve been saving up, hoping that higher stats and a new skill will help keep me safe.

You are now a level 6 Ocean’s Child!

You have one free attribute point to distribute.

You have gained one point of Mind.

You have gained two points of Spirit.

You have gained one point of Perception.

New Skill obtained: Mana Infusion

My new skill seemed interesting, but not exactly an obvious solution for my current problems. Or was this the System’s way of saying that it wasn’t actually a problem? Or perhaps it was a problem, and I simply already had the tools to deal with it. I activated my new skill, and while I could feel energy leaving me and pouring into my boat body, it didn’t seem to have any obvious effect. My passenger was still just sitting there, unaffected by neither my skill nor the delay. I cut Mana Infusion off before it could drain my reserves too low.

“Let’s begin.” I tapped out.

My clone stiffened, before climbing to his feet and taking a somewhat dramatic pose. It probably would have had more effect if I was a person facing him, but the image of him squaring off against thin air was more absurd than anything.

“Robert Gregory Rowland. You have been found wanting. Your body is wanting, your mind is wanting, your emotions are wanting. You are a broken person desperately running from your flaws. Let me help you. I can help you be better; help you be more. If you but say the word I can give you my strength, and all it will cost you is…”

Evil me faded off into silence, his last words sounding distinctly confused. The fact that he was shaped like I had been before my death began to clue me in to what was happening. It’s a trial where people are supposed to face themselves, but I’m not exactly a normal person. I’m a spirit possessing a boat, for all that I still think of myself as a human. Can this being even follow through on his threat or reward? I don’t think so, hence why it’s so safe for me to be here. It’s a game that I literally cannot lose. I just need to let things play out till the end.

Once again I begin to tap, my words coming sloppy and fast as I trust the spirit to pick up the intent behind them. “My body is gone. My spirit was wounded, but every day I heal a little. My emotions are my own. Without them I would not be me.”

“Are you really healing? Every time you make a mistake, you claim to have found the root cause, to delude yourself into thinking that somehow this will be the time that you manage to tame your monsters, but they always return. All your efforts are but the feeble delusions of a coddled mind.”

Those words hurt, because there was an element of truth in them. Mental and emotional damage like I was struggling with wasn’t just something I could cure myself of and be done with it. Even when I had had access to drugs and therapists, it was so often a three steps forward and two steps back sort of deal, and the world wasn’t willing to leave me at peace to put my pieces back together. New Jobs, family emergencies, political drama, romantic breakups, and finally cancer were all issues I had to juggle and weigh against prioritizing my mental health.

It was the accusation of someone who had access to every single moment of my life, and yet had decided to ignore the context to deliver the most damaging blows that he could. I could see just how this magical being could win these sorts of games, and could convince his audience to let him fix everything for them. Hell, if I thought it could be completely believed I would have loved to get my hands on a magical cure or all that ails me. But that wasn’t an option for me.

“I’m not done yet.” It was a simple answer, but the truth. Growth wasn’t a one-time thing. No one instantly became perfect, or could stay the same person forever. As long as I was alive, I could continue to work to better myself, no matter how small those improvements might be, no matter how often I needed to get back up and try again.

“Not done messing up, not done pushing others away. You’re so afraid of letting anyone get close to you that you put yourself into the worst situations. Think about it. Lirillin wasn’t actually a bad person. You were, for not trusting him for months, for running away instead of talking to him. You could have worked something out with Adam or Jim, but here you are; running away again. You have no idea how to interact with others, and it’s so bad that you'll never get the opportunity to practice and learn how to do it right. The best you can hope for is an unfulfilling life drifting from one place to the next, but never feeling connected or cared for. You should just give up here and now, and save yourself all that pain.”

“I can’t.” It's both easy and hard to admit. “You are telling the truth, but it’s not the whole truth. Perhaps I'm too different, too socially isolated to ever fit in properly. But it's not like you can do anything to change that is there? I’d love to have a different body, have a second chance at being a person again. If you could offer me that I’d be sorely tempted, but you can’t, can you? So where does that leave us?”

Once again the spirit answers my questions with silence, and I relax a bit, mentally drained from letting it out all at once. For a second I let myself get caught up in that dream of getting turned back into a human, of getting to see Dirint and this rest of the world through regular eyes once more. That hope fades as the moment stretches to the breaking point, and soon I begin to wonder what happens next.